Iuchi Toshimo
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Posts posted by Iuchi Toshimo
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I tried out Spider Woman using Prot and Lead to abuse the signature Captain Marvel ally. Used Prot cards to heal and stun. Lead cards to over clock the ally. I just stayed in hero form the whole time, usually with 3 in every stat. There are some issues if ally not drawn, but with Tackle, her native stun card, and the heal cards from Prot, plus the typical Maria Hill recycling From Lead... it was a comfortable wait.
so yeah, that was a flexible strategy to approach the Rise campaign for the first time and the most fun I’ve had deck brewing since the game was released.
HirumaShigure reacted to this -
Our group started playing on Easy, but now we try new campaigns on Standard and replay campaigns on Hard.
Early campaigns on Standard difficult demand you beat a skill test you want to pass by at least 2 and late campaigns demand beating the difficulty by 3. Now, this "beating by 2" isn't a guarantee, but it's like an 80+ % chance.
For Hard, those numbers change to 3 in early scenarios and 4 in the late campaign. Skull tokens also get really variable, swinging between -0 to -7 in some scenarios. This difficulty requires more game knowledge for risk/reward assessment. The resources required to beat a skill test by 3 all the time are very limited, and it's especially punishing to spend those resources and get a bad pull, so decks tend towards getting stuff without pulling tokens or by having silly combos. So it's important to know ahead of time the scenario mechanics and goals with everyone clear on their duties like an MMO raid.
Any token outside these planned numbers we consider extra "auto fail tokens." Which can of course be mitigated by spending even more resources on the most important pulls. Recognizing which pulls are the most important is the game knowledge.
It is also worth mentioning that reducing the difficulty of a skill test (Flashlight) is strictly better than increasing a stat since zero is the minimum skill pull (if Stat + token < 0, then the test = 0)
Art Student is a great example of a card that does something everybody wants but doesn't pull a token. So is Will to Survive. These types of cards are more popular at higher difficulties. Survivor is actually pretty great at higher difficulties.
Luke Robinson using Vantage Point when he goes to his Dream gate is an example of a combo. Not only does this a remove a clue from somewhere, which might be mechanically advantageous, but also Luke could then investigate. Since Vantage Point reduces the shroud of the Dream Gate to zero, his token pull doesn't matter, unless it's the auto fail, since worst case Luke's 3 investigate - 6 token pull = 0 in this game and investigator wins ties.
Look for these types of interactions. Learn how to prioritize cluing, killing, evading, scenario mechanics, and so on. We all started by getting curb stomped by cultists in the woods (I still haven't beaten that scenario and we've beaten the TFA cow level on Hard)
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Amanda already has proof of concept:
I already run a Practice Makes Perfect/Deduction/Enraptured combo deck with Luke in TFA hard mode that is just super strong.
I think Momentum is going to be ridiculous with her. Or Take the Initiative on a turn she goes first.
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I played solo Winifred through the scenario on standard difficulty and was able to beat it during Agenda 2a. I was able to use Wini's high Evade and Intel Report to complete my steps of the Envoy process very quickly. So it seemed pretty easy for a blind play through. I do like how enemies were force spawned on me so that I could complete my objectives since playing solo on a tight clock could mean I never see an enemy otherwise. Smart design there. I did not get a chance to see anything related to the set aside "just an ordinary car" and maybe missed out on important narrative or victory points? However, I love the Ocean's Eleven feel and our playgroup plans on revisiting as a team. It was fun and replayable and I want to see the other tasks and maybe get less lucky. The roles were brilliant additions and I hope they feature in the future scenarios.
The back of my Act deck told me that,
"...the Sheldon Gang has definitely received the message," however, because there was no car slashing or field burning involved in my playthrough, I was not instructed to record that fact in my campaign log. Which seemed weird.
Thanks for the good times!
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It's easier to get all 6 with more players since -someone- is always closer to "parley" no matter where the cultist spawns. And those actions spent moving around add up.
We use Midnight Masks to test our zero exp decks before a campaign. We try to get par 3 before resign.
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Mateo/Leo was our first trip through TFA. Leo would use, for example, Double or Nothing + Shotgun to apply the beatdown and Mateo would feed him Elder Signs. Mateo had access to a clue-ing suite with Mystics, Leo funded Keen Eye with Rogue events. Seemed like a winning team.
We didn't know how dumb that strategy was at the time, for TFA, even if it would be very effective in general. When a certain recurring character showed up in scenario 2, we literally killed it in 2 rounds. We got to scenario 7 with 26 Fury. That went very badly. Very, very badly.
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2 hours ago, Eldan985 said:Huh. So, someone explain to me how that is worth 4 XP? Especially as that also seems to hit every skill test you do during the mythos phase.
Lola, who can get an absurd number of actions in a turn, would abuse this card deeply. All permanents Lola is TFA hard mode viable already. "Omg, Lola" was my first thought when I saw this card, my second thought was, "oh wait 4 exp."
Rita might still be able to capitalize on it.
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Winifred is the most exciting to me, especially her signature card. I actually can't wait to play a Rogue for once!
Granny Orne is remarkably combo-tastic and might elevate Silas to the status of omnipotent, godlike-being. I'm just glad someone competes with Peter for that ally slot.
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1. The AH veterans among us generally find the Marvel game too easy. With that warning...
2. Buy a single core set and play. It contains 3 scenarios and the limited amount of cards makes deckbuilding a non-issue (you're basically packing everything.) The first scenario is tutorial, the second scenario is average difficulty (par 3), and the third is designed to slaughter you most of the time.
2.5: A brilliant person who is not me created this https://images.app.goo.gl/SWGArpYUU6KkxRCq8
3. Did you enjoy (winn-) losing? If yes, then I'd go to Dunwich because it's set up friendly and has great staple cards (it can be mechanically unfair). I'd also pick up a second core because my brain can't handle the power of incompleteness, but you may be okay with it. ymmv.
4. Then I'd branch out. Story wise I'd go Carcosa, Forgotten Age, Circle Undone. Gameplay wise I'd go Forgotten Age, Carcosa, Circle Undone.
But. We know people hate Forgotten Age and love Circle Undone and those people have silly walks. In other words, it's a matter of opinion but Carcosa is universally loved by all.
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tldr: You can play 4 player with 2 Cores and 1 of everything else. The investigators in the Dunwich deluxe expansion is probably the best first purchase after a second core set.
My wife and I play out of 2 cores and 1 of everything else. We can build every viable deck with no overlap, but we can't build, say, two guardians at the same time.
We play in groups of 3 or 4 and the other players have their own collections.
Building 4 decks out of one collection is certainly doable, if sometimes awkward. We are currently struggling to create teams to attempt The Dream Eaters, since my Wife and I need 4 decks built out of one collection, which is much harder than building only 2 decks. We could do some extra bookkeeping and swap cards out between scenarios, but we enjoy the challenge. However, Dream Eaters 4p out of one collection will likely require decklists and card swapping.
To accomplish this challenge of 4 decks from 1 collection, we basically separated investigators into single class buckets, not counting the stray hairs of some off class cards. For example, Mandy is a seeker and Carolyn is a guardian, despite their limited access to some other classes. Norman is clearly a Seeker/Mystic and so he's not part of this list. That's not saying those are good choices for this team building process, but it's a start. I'm sure everyone's list is different, but for example, maybe:
Guardian Seeker Rogue Mystic Survivor
Mark Rex Finn Akachi Calvin
Carolyn Mandy Jenny Mateo Silas
So to build a team of 4, choose a person out of three different buckets. So: Finn, Akachi, and Calvin. Then the fourth team member can be anyone from the remaining buckets or a dual class character, so now Roland, Joe, and Lola are additional options. Maybe choose Roland. Lastly, just decide the little overlaps. Finn is probably the most disruptive to deckbuilding with his access to Survivor and Seeker, so build him last out of what's left. Note that this might lead to suboptimal builds.
Some Upgrades, like Charisma, are popular but also proxyable. Others upgrades would need to be discussed (Example: everyone can't upgrade into Ornate Bow since there is only 2 copies.)
Then, if we were playing Dream Eaters, my wife and I would choose teams of 2 for Dream Eaters. Maybe Roland and Calvin for one team and Akachi and Finn for the other.
Or we could go Rex, Jenny, Silas, Diana as a different team. Maybe Mark, Mandy, Finn, and Anges. There is quite a bit of variety with a full collection right now.
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We all know that only Dragon players themselves or players in bed with the Dragon can Hurricane PunchTM
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Under the previous ruleset, Ms. Marvel could Wiggle Room during an attack on anyone and suddenly become the target of that attack without exhausting, allowing her to recycle the card with her Hero ability. Now she has to defend like everyone else.
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It seems clear and thematic to me to follow people through an open gate.
Also seems to be within the realm of rules interpretation, as those locations are essentially connected for investigator movement purposes. I see no reason why this wouldn’t include more exotic movement like shortcut, track shoes, or safeguard.
one might argue they are not connected for Luke’s ability to play events at adjacent locations, since that isn’t a movement.
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Mr. Peabody can give any location -1 shroud and the passageway trait from anywhere. He can do this to the hidden library from anywhere or to any other available location, which might be otherwise beneficial such as moving Guardians around to punch cultists. Mr. Peabody could give -1 shroud and the Passageway trait to the planet Mars, were only that Mars was a legal target in this scenario. The passageway trait itself is meaningless without the extra game text on act 3.
Logically, one cannot enter (or leave) the hidden library unless the investigator controlling Mr. Peabody activates the ability and chooses the hidden library, giving it the passageway trait. Then, any investigator at a different passageway could move into the hidden library or from the hidden library to a passageway. Mr. Peabody's ability would need to be done every turn to maintain the additional connection(s). This creates a conditional statement requiring another passageway to be in play before any investigator could get to the hidden library. If the setup somehow did not contain passageways in the manor proper, then no one could ever enter the hidden library.
If that's the case, please double check that setup was performed correctly, because that situation shouldn't be possible.
It is also possible that the passageway trait has gone unnoticed on the locations that have it naturally. (both Historical Libraries and Mr. Peabody's Office)
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We beat the B-side Wrecking Crew with 4 players last night. We had a person learning the game on a home brew Capt. America Leadership, someone using the pre-built Ms. Marvel Protection, then Spiderman Aggression and Capt. Marvel Justice. It was the first time any of us had fought the Wrecking Crew, so we overcame a few surprises here and there, like Piledriver annihilating our economy and Bulldozer just berserking through all of the decks.
The 250+ hp was very intimidating, but I don't think anyone was particularly worried we'd lose. We're all AH:LCG veterans and have grown accustomed to rolling with the punches. As far as making it more difficult, I couldn't imagine playing 4 player against both the A and B versions since just the B version took us about 2.5 hours. We focused Wrecker down first since his mechanics boost the others, but then we went in order of remaining deck size to limit acceleration tokens from deck reshuffles. It left Thunderball for last and he whimpered into the sweet good night, since we removed all threat from every scheme, stunned, confused, then defeated him for ultimate humiliation points..
The game got noticeably easier after we defeated the first bad guy, so I propose we try leaving them all alive and combine their hp into one ginormous hp blob of mayhem. So all four villains sharing one common health pool added up, all alive and kicking or all defeated. That could work, I'm guessing, but it does change the functionality of a some cards. I'll try and suggest it the next time we play if no one tries it here and reports in.
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Yeah, poor Lola can buy Stick to the Plan but never use it.
I do play a lot of Guardian and I usually buy SttP at some point during the campaign. I usually put Emergency Cache and Ever Vigilant under my SttP and mulligan hard for 3 assests just to hit the scenario running. Even with only 2 cards played from Ever Vigilant, it's typically well worth it just for the tempo.
The third slot is either Prepared for the Worst or an Extra/Custom Ammo, depending on my feels.
I haven't played Tommy yet, but he adds some spice to the decisions. I honestly think "Fool me Once" is a great candidate, maybe for Tommy who doesn't stress about money as much. Tommy could also tuck a Waylay under it should they be headed into Undimensioned and Unseen. Waylay is just silly in that scenario.
Mimi61 and Krysmopompas reacted to this -
4 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:A while ago, someone proposed Lola Hayes, Blood Mage, possibly on Board Game Geek. Basically, you take Blood Pact and Borrowed Time, plus as many cards that give you extra actions and that generate doom as you can.
Spend most of your turns just doing stuff normally, probably badly. Fill up your Borrowed Time. Then, when the Witching Hour comes, pump your blood pact, generate all the doom, and start a 6+ action turn with enormous stats.
And Will to Survive / Ace in the Hole classic combo, since we have all the extra action cards. Then Resourceful or Quantum Flux to recycle and start over.
Lola is amazingly underrated.
2 hours ago, Carthoris said:I like the dual-class cards for Lola, but they're better at level zero where they each still work in two roles.
I've played Lola through most of the campaigns thus far (except TCU and TDE) and only play her when I think of a new deck. Lola's weakness actually makes the basic versions of these strictly worse because they're all assets and get hit by her weakness... unless we're just filling up space to play with more neutrals. She requires 3x7 classed cards and a cycle of the 6 dual class cards counts as 12 of those, leaving 3 more from each class. That would mean, minimally, 15 classed cards (6 dual + 9 other) and 20 neutrals. Interesting. Keep talking, please.
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How will they know which encounter sets are being used? Are they setting everything up?
Seems like an opportunity to curate the experience since, as you say,. they're only going through it once.
I mean, only the chef knows what happened in the kitchen, amiright?
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He probably meant Resourceful and Eucatastrophe.
Silas gets 6exp and becomes The Most Broken Deck in the Game. In our recent Hard Mode Carcosa playthrough, my Silas deck beat the entire Dim Carcosa scenario by himself. H-dog didn't stand a chance.
Conclusion: Silas Marsh is the Chuck Norris of Arkham Horror.
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We do get spoiled a bit when we buy things as they come out, and I remembered seeing some availability complaints in the Facebook group, so I did some research:
It does appear that Miskatonic Museum (Chp 3 for Dunwich) and For the Greater Good (Chp 4 for CU) are the only chapter packs out of stock on ffg's site.
I found both on Amazon for a $10 markup. Dunwich itself is out of stock through ffg, but is discounted on Amazon.
I've also heard that The Pallid Mask (chp 6 for Carcosa) can be problematic, but it's in stock now, so maybe the King in Yellow is calling to you after all.
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Welcome to the game!
The general recommendation is to play everything in order, starting with Dunwich, but we've seen people start with other deluxe sets and have a blast because this game is insanely fun. Starting with CU is totally plausible and is also a very interesting choice for us veterans and I hope you revisit us someday to regale us of the experience.
The Return to ... sets are for spicing up campaigns after they get stale. They also contain player cards. We are currently awaiting the announcement of the Return to Forgotten Age set. I presume that Night of the Zealot isn't stale for you yet, so I'd wait on Return to Night of the Zealot unless getting those player cards is burning a hole in your wallet.
So, were I in your position and I liked the game enough, I'd either finish up CU or delay starting CU for now in order to buy and complete Dunwich with some extra CU player cards/investigators in the mix. But if you start CU and don't buy all the chapter packs, then you'll definitely feel like you left off somewhere.
Herr Style reacted to this -
Enraged would be good on anyone that can benefit from it at least twice, which is a long list. Tigra can use it three times and Hulk theoretically can as well, but Luke Cage can use it 4 times, soaking the first hit with his Tough status.
Science isn't the only troublesome icon with Hulk, Energy and Wild are bad, too. Hulk is a bad ally.
We've seen a new player throw Hulk in their Iron Man deck and then proceed to destroy the entire game with 3 Energy icon flips in a row, killing several important allies, causing a disproportionate amount of attrition, and essentially throwing the game.
And while it was funny for him, and maybe funny for the other Hulk fans out there, it warped the game so that only one player was having fun, and that demonstrated why the Hulk ally is awful outside of single player.
Here's hoping that Hulk is a great identity.
HirumaShigure reacted to this -
We rotate lead investigator and let them choose the next campaign/priority on character played, then we build teams around their concepts and what we know will happen in the campaign. Based off what my team tends to pick:
We always look forward to our FA replays. That campaign definitely benefits from some foresight, though, like knowing the consequences of supplies, understanding the mechanics of scenarios 4 and 5 so that realistic expectations prevail, and knowing how to spend exp before scenario 6. FA is our current favorite and it's still one we haven't tried all the different endings (it's actually difficult and we generally take what we can get.) In our playgroup, our only house rule is changing the tone of a story choice in the introduction of Scenario 3 so that the consequences make sense.
We generally dislike Circle Undone for it's hokey writing. It's mechanically sound and engaging, if a bit punishing to team builds... it certainly favors an "every man is an island" approach. I feel like we'd enjoy it more if we overhauled some of the story beats. Perhaps we're being too harsh for a casual fantasy horror game, but the absurdity gets to be too much for us in TCU. We dislike the story tone of the last scenario enough that we've skipped playing it in the past and just allowed the bad guys to win. We've only finished it three times, so maybe it'll grow on us.
Carcosa is still, likely, the most replayable, and is easily the one we recommend to new players, with a great story and interesting scenario/campaign mechanics, but our group has beaten Carcosa and Dunwich so many times we tend to avoid choosing them, even with the Return to... options. Although we've never once been able to save Peter Clover, which is definitely my white whale for Arkham Horror. If your team has saved Peter Clover yourselves, imagine me shaking my fist at you in rage.
NotZ is fun, just too short.
So, based off what we tend to pick, from best to least best:
1. Forgotten Age; Carcosa
2. Dunwich
3. Circle Undone; Night of the Zealot
Since we play campaigns in about 4/6 weeks with side scenarios, we haven't started Dream Eaters and won't start until about March so that we can play through the whole thing. We are worried that, much like NotZ, it'll be time to retire an investigator before we've really explored their capabilities. Maybe we'll chain some campaigns together or stuff in all the side scenarios?
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FAQ V1.8 Now Up
in Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Posted
Inclusion. New players. Filthy casuals go to invocation events, too.
Maybe they just figured out Milan/Higher Ed and are excited to contribute.
Maybe they wanted to show off some Amanda/Versatile/Quick Thinking monstrosity because it sounded cool.